Piazza Maggiore, Florian, and Grand Harbour, from our house, Malta, Jany 1858

Mounted in album with PAI4673-PAI4697, PAI4699-PAI4716.; No.26. No. 26 in Fanshawe's Baltic and later album, 1843-1883. Fold-out panoramic drawing, on two joined sheets, the right one stuck down on the album page, which bears the artist's caption below the image, as title. Valletta proper is on the left behind the inner fortifications on the Floriana promontory, with ships below in Grand Harbour. The harbour's seaward entrance is behind the city, between the fort of St Elmo and Fort Ricasoli, of which part can be seen in the distance on the far shore. The next promontory in on the far side bears Fort St Angelo, with British warships lying in Dockyard Creek below it, then Fort St Michael at the head of the Senglea promontory, with French Creek on the far right. The foreground bears an interesting combination of local traffic, on foot and wheeled, with a dizzying perspective drop across the face of the flanking houses far right, which are presumably built inside the outer defence walls of Valletta. Soldiers and a gun are seen below and a pack-train entering through a gate in the walls. Windmills can be seen on the walls far left. The drawing was made while the Mediterranean fleet was stationed for the winter of 1857-58 at Malta, where Fanshawe's wife, Jane, and their young son Evelyn came out to join him. Their older children remained in England and Fanshawe was making applications for a dockyard posting at home to be closer to them: these were unsuccessful. In June 1858, however, after about three months' rheumatic illness (during which time his wife also accompanied him at sea), he was invalided home.
Edward Gennys Fanshawe

Original size: 230 mm x 645 mm